Colonel Boldre's face relaxed, and he gave no command. The watchers saw the gunners busy as ants; then came a flash and a roar as a shell hurtled among the trees, and a second was in the air before the first had burst. With hardly a pause a third and fourth shell exploded among the pandies, apparently with deadly effect. Their fire slackened, died down; they wavered, and another shell fell amongst them. Panic-stricken they streamed away towards the sheltering walls. The Lancers mounted their horses; the guns scattered another shell or two amid the fugitives, and, limbering up, rattled after them. But the surprise had failed, and there was now little chance of capturing the arch-traitor. With poignant disappointment Colonel Boldre saw the troops pouring out of the village through the north-western gate, the exit farthest from them. He gave the word, and the Irregulars galloped away to their left front to cut them off. Ted's Arab was both fleet and great-hearted, and he and Govind Singh were soon to the front, half a length in advance of the ragged line. It was a race, not a charge, and Ted remembered with a smile how he had once guided "The Padre" to victory. The pace of the runaways was checked by the river which, bending from the north-east, looped round the western and southern sides of the village, leaving only the eastern side open, and _there_ were the British Lancers, now quite near to the walls. Close behind him Ted could hear the jingle of a gun and the mad galloping of its team, tearing the big weapon along with jolt and clatter. Few sights are there to surpass horse artillery galloping into action, and few sounds more musical; and the noble horses seem inspired thereby, and enter into the spirit of the movement with a zest as great as that of the men. They were now level with the ghaut, or ford, and a few hundred yards to the west thereof. The guns unlimbered, and, after sending a couple of shells after the leading fugitives who had made good their escape, they opened on the ghaut and got range with the second shot. More than half the pandies were checked; on the one side were English cavalry and a couple of those deadly guns, on the other the only way of escape was a death-trap. Colonel Boldre despatched a body of Probyn's Horse and of his own men under Claude to ride down to the ghaut and take charge of the prisoners. The rest continued in the track of the Nana. Ted, Govind Singh, and a handful of the better-mounted men had kept on their way without a pause, and they quickly perceived that they were overhauling the sepoys, the hindmost of whom presently began to scatter across the fields and swampy ground, making for the woods and jungle. And after them went most of the pursuers.